Mal Meninga has been a big factor in Queensland's dominance of State of Origin over the past seven years and now he's turning his attention further north.Papua New Guinea has always been a hotbed of exceptional rugby league talent but without the right infrastructure they've never quite unlocked the formula to harnessing their potential.But that might all be about to change after the Maroons' supercoach was hired by the PNG government to turn the country's national sport into a genuine contender at international level.As High Performance Director for Team Kumul, Meninga is looking to turn the national side, coached by another Queensland great, Adrian Lam, into a smokey to fear in future World Cups"There's so many people playing rugby league up here," Meninga told Fox Sports News."I've been coming here for such a long time and you can see the talent but we sort of just need to take it to another level and that's what the high performance program is all about."That's why we're implementing best practice, state of the art coaching programs so they can start to reach their potential."I believe they can make rapid improvement and hopefully we'll see a direct result of that from their performances in the World Cup this year."

But even if the 2013 World Cup comes too soon, Meninga is confident the five year program he has been charged with implementing could translate into a World Cup semi-final appearance, and maybe even a final, in the not too distant future."A semi-final and hopefully a final performance - that's a dream and a vision, but hopefully I think it's achievable. We'll see what happens but I think there's tremendous potential and enormous development opportunities for them," Meninga said."They can be a surprise packet. It all depends on the strides they make."It's going to take time but I believe if we keep implementing the right processes for all the right reasons rugby league up there will prosper."